English: 65,000 feet above Earth, the NASA ER-2 high-altitude pilot calmly waits to adjust course and intercept lightning-producing storms during phase 2 of the GOES-16 Field Campaign. The second phase of the field campaign focused on validating the satellite’s lightning mapper. By clearly measuring a lone, well-defined lighting flash with the plane’s instruments, the GOES-16 satellite’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), and various ground sensors, scientists can perform an important “one-to-one” comparison to hone in on the GLM’s detection threshold, or sensitivity, for light. The GOES-16 Field Campaign, a two-month effort to calibrate and validate the Earth-viewing instruments on NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite, completed mission operations in May.

Credit: NASA

Learn more about phase 2 of the field campaign at www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/hunting-lightning-day-goes-16...

Read a recap of phase 1 of the field campaign at www.goes-r.gov/mission/phaseOneComplete.html

An overview of the field campaign can be found at www.goes-r.gov/mission/fieldCampaignBegins.html